


Cornerstone

by nubianamy



Series: Sleight of Hand [2]
Category: Sneakers (1992)
Genre: Chases, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, M/M, On the Run, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22081744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nubianamy/pseuds/nubianamy
Summary: It takes a while to build trust when somebody you love conspired to have you sent to prison, but Cosmo and Marty are willing to give it a try.
Relationships: Martin Bishop/Cosmo (Sneakers)
Series: Sleight of Hand [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589452
Kudos: 4





	Cornerstone

**Author's Note:**

> After finally finishing The French Drop, it became clear to me that my protagonists were not going to allow me to leave them with a simple happy ending. For one thing, relationships take work, even less complicated ones than Marty and Cosmo’s. I wanted to take them through at least a little of the work. 
> 
> Even if you have watched and are familiar with Sneakers, you will want to have read The French Drop first. This story continues on directly following the conclusion.
> 
> I can’t promise to finish this any time soon, but I figured I'd rather post it a little at a time than let it languish on my computer. The story is fully formed in my head, and I have a lot of notes, so there is indeed an end in sight. If you prefer waiting for this WIP to be complete, I won’t be offended. 
> 
> Enjoy. -amy

_Misdirection is the cornerstone of nearly all successful magic; without it, even the most skilled sleight of hand or mechanical device is unlikely to create an illusion. -T.A. Waters_

* * *

Marty walked with Cosmo in silence for a few minutes before it occurred to him that he should be saying what he was thinking. He shook his head, smiling to himself.

“I’m not used to talking,” he said, when Cosmo looked at him inquisitively.

“Nobody said you had to. Whatever needs to be said will come out eventually.”

His tone sounded casual, as though they had all the time in the world. Marty wasn't sure if he really thought they did. Maybe, given enough time, Marty could figure out Cosmo's tells.

At the moment, it was hard to choose any one thing about Cosmo in particular to focus on. Marty’s brain was still fully occupied with integrating what he was sensing about Cosmo into his mind’s 23-year-old schemata of Cosmo. Every touch, every word, every movement Cosmo made was rich with information: the wrinkles around his mouth, the way he straightened the front of his shirt with brisk efficiency, the warmth of his back under Marty’s hand. The more data points Marty collected, the less imaginary Cosmo seemed—and the more overwhelmed Marty felt to be walking beside him.

Marty cleared his throat. “I have a hotel room at the Landing.”

Cosmo nodded, but not before Marty saw the flash in his dark eyes. “I’m going to suggest we pick up some fortification first. Is that liquor store on Union still around?”

“Let’s go find out.”

The street was mostly vacant this early in the morning, with few pedestrians, but practically no cover on either side. Marty shifted to walk on Cosmo’s left, surveilling the street ahead of them as he pulled his cap down a little further over his sunglasses. Cosmo watched him with amusement.

“There is literally nobody paying attention to us.”

“That is not an assumption I feel safe making.” He took two steps ahead, glancing right around the corner before beckoning for Cosmo to join him on his left. Cosmo sighed.

“Nobody’s looking for you, Marty. Your name has been cleared.”

“I’m not convinced it has been, no matter what Abby said. And now that the name _Martin Bishop_ is tied to _Marty Brice_ in the NSA database…” He paused as Cosmo shook his head. “… Isn’t it?”

“What reason would I have had to actually make that change?”

Marty stopped on the sidewalk and turned to face him. “You’re telling me it was… what? A fake database? Or did you change it back?”

“Real database, real encryption. Real login, even. Just not a live update. I deleted the file before the daily uploads were scheduled to begin. The NSA has no record of your alias. Neither Mr. Wallace nor Mr. Gordon any longer work for me, and none of my other employees were privy to the name _Martin Bishop._ As far as the US government is concerned, he still doesn’t have a past.”

Marty let out a slow breath. “Well. That puts a different spin on things. Still, I think I’ll wait to use any credit cards until I have more evidence of that.”

Cosmo’s smile was still calm. “I suspect you could use the black box to find out for certain, once you’re back in Palo Alto.Although, if they do find you, identity fraud might be a charge they _could_ make stick. It may be better if you stop pretending to be someone you’re not.”

They crossed to the west side of Seward and turned right onto Union. Marty spotted the liquor store, and they headed toward it.

“As it turns out,” said Martin, “I’m not sure we’re going to be located in Palo Alto anymore. The team is clearing out the office this weekend, looking for a new home base. Liz will keep me updated.”

“Liz.” Cosmo grimaced. “I definitely owe her an apology for using her as bait in that scenario at Playtronics.”

“Trust me, she's no amateur. She knew the risks of taking on a job with us. Plus she’s smarter than you and me put together, and she stands for no bullshit. I think you’ll like her.”

The sign on the door of the liquor store read _Open 12 noon-1 AM._ Cosmo scanned the empty streets. “Let’s try heading up Erie. There should be a convenience store on the way to the hotel.”

“We can skip it, if you’re done looking.”

“Marty.” Cosmo chuckled, rubbing one eyebrow. “How can I put this… under these circumstances, if I’m going to have any kind of meaningful conversation with you, I’m going to need a drink. More than one. I’m sorry if that bothers you; I know it’s early in the day.”

“Hey, no… that’s fine.” Marty nodded, feeling giddy, almost as though he’d already had a drink himself. “No judgment.”

Cosmo still looked somewhat embarrassed, but he returned the nod. Marty moved back into place along Cosmo’s left, closest to the curb. He watched a white car approach, then roll past them and disappear around the corner.

“So the name change you pretended to make in the database,” he said. “That was for the benefit of… the individuals watching?”

Cosmo inclined his head. “I had to make sure they continued to see us as enemies. We were, when Wallace and Gordon brought you in, but after that moment in my office, in the quiet room…”

He trailed off. Marty paused on the corner of Union and Erie, remembering with vivid clarity Cosmo’s hands on him, the kiss against the mainframe cabinet. He quivered, ignoring the passing cars.

Cosmo sighed. “Yeah. _That_ look. No, I couldn't be caught on video with you looking at me like that.”

“I—“ Marty started guiltily. “Like what?”

“Like I'd just given you everything you wanted.”

The June morning was warm, but Marty’s face flushed far hotter as they walked up Erie to the crosswalk. He fumbled for something to say.

“Why did you hire those two guys, anyway? Wallace, I found him in Gregor’s book of crooked American agents.”

“Both he and Gordon are terrible people.” Cosmo gestured for Marty to cross the street first, then jogged after him. “But they were also exactly who I needed. The key to building loyalty among criminals, Marty, is to let them know you’re aware of all their secrets—and then to offer them your trust anyway. Wallace hated everybody else, but me…” He smiled. “He would have done anything for me.”

“Seems like he’d be dealing with some major cognitive dissonance. I mean, he took every opportunity he could to tell me how much he hated queers.”

Cosmo shrugged. “He had no idea I was anything other than heterosexual.”

Marty thought this over as they entered the convenience store. They split up without discussion, Cosmo heading into the liquor aisle and Marty browsing the newspapers. There were no obvious headlines that caught his eye, other than an amusing one about Vice President Dan Quayle erroneously correcting a student’s spelling of the word _potato._

Marty picked up a copy of the New York Times and stood behind Cosmo in line at the counter, trying not to stare at the box of condoms the clerk was bagging along with the bottle of Glenlivet 12 year. After Cosmo left with his purchases, Marty paid for his paper and followed.

Cosmo didn’t even look ruffled as Marty caught up to him, being careful not to jostle the canvas bag holding the leopard sharks. They walked for a few more minutes in silence.

“What you said about Wallace, thinking you were… heterosexual. Does that mean…“ He watched Cosmo’s placid expression with growing unease. “I mean, that whole time, you had nobody? There were no men who…?”

“None that any of my employees would have been aware of.” Cosmo gave him an oblique look. “Most of them only saw me during the workday. I didn’t hire bodyguards until the perception of my wealth exceeded a reasonable amount, and for most of the last several years, I’ve kept a fairly low profile.”

That was going to have to be enough information for now. Marty waited until they were within spitting distance of the hotel to hand Cosmo his keycard, concealing it in a handshake. “Room 614.”

The card disappeared without Cosmo moving his hand from Marty’s. “See you there.”

Marty stopped at the desk, smiling at the clerk. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I seem to have lost my keycard. Could I get another one?”

The elevator ride up to the sixth floor seemed to take an inordinately long amount of time. Marty took the opportunity to sort through his memories of the last time he’d had a rendezvous with someone in a hotel room. He hadn’t felt any less lonely after that experience than he had prior to it. Was he so certain this was going to be any different?

The sixth floor hallway was empty. Just in case, Marty placed the “Do not disturb” sign on the handle of his hotel room door before closing it behind him.

As Marty carefully set the leopard sharks in a safe spot out of the way of the door, Cosmo emerged from the bathroom, bearing two glasses. Marty watched as he set them up on the counter of the kitchenette and unscrewed the cap on his bottle of scotch.

“Sorry for the ridiculous room.” Marty gestured at the expansive suite, trying to find something to look at besides Cosmo. “I thought the top floor would… uh.” _Be more private_ would not travel from his brain to his lips.

“It takes a surprisingly short amount of time to get used to extravagance.”

“I suppose. I don't even know what half of this stuff is for.” He placed a hand on a tall cart draped in a vinyl zippered cover. “I mean, what is this, anyway?”

“It’s a mobile valet.” At Marty’s apparent blank look, Cosmo added, “You hang your suits inside and the hotel staff wheels them downstairs to be cleaned and pressed.”

“See, there you go,” Marty said weakly.

There was a brief, awkward silence. Marty pulled up a seat at the counter of the kitchenette.

“It occurs to me now that Buddy Wallace might have known your father.” Cosmo poured a generous portion of scotch into each glass, sliding one across the counter to Marty. “They were both working for the NSA at the same time.”

“It’s possible. My father never would have let Wallace know about me, though. I was his dirty little secret.” Marty took a sip of the scotch, letting the bite of the alcohol drive away some of the memories of that last horrible confrontation with his father. When he put the glass back on the counter, Cosmo was gazing at him with an expression of such sadness, Marty had to look away. “Probably just as well he died when he did.”

“When did that happen?”

“Six years ago.” Marty paused, momentarily confused, then chuckled. “It’s funny. I thought you said… I mean, I imagined you told me you went to my father’s funeral.” He paused, the glass of scotch at his lips. “You _didn’t_ go to his funeral, did you?”

“No, I did not.”

“The hardest thing about losing my dad was, after he was gone, it was so much harder for my mother to bring up questions about my career. I think she was always afraid I would end up like him, working for the government. Or maybe she wished I had, I don’t know.” Marty shook his head. “Anyway. You wouldn’t know about my mother, then, either. Alzheimer’s, late stage now. I moved her to a nursing home last spring.”

“God.” Cosmo set down his glass and came around the counter to stand before Marty. All the reservation on his face was gone, leaving only genuine sympathy. Marty blinked a few times and cleared his throat, and Cosmo paused, watching him from a step away. “I’m so sorry, Marty.”

The pain was still acute and jarring, but by now familiar. “Thanks. I can’t say we were all that close, you know? But it’s different when you know you can’t call them anymore. Even if you never did all that often before.”

Cosmo smiled faintly. “You might recall I have some experience with difficult fathers.”

“Yeah, I remember. You stayed at school instead of going home on the train for winter break.”

“My mother left him a few years ago. That was a relief.” Cosmo leaned back against the counter. “She and my sisters came into some unexpected money.”

“Of course they did.” Marty smiled at him. “Do you ever get to see them?”

“Marty...” Cosmo’s eyes dropped to the counter. “My family thinks I’m dead. _Everyone_ thinks I'm dead.”

Marty felt his smile evaporate while Cosmo retrieved his glass of scotch. Eventually he sighed unhappily, watching Cosmo tip the glass to his lips.

“Can I just apologize in advance for everything I’m going to say wrong? I think it’s fair to assume it’ll happen again.”

Cosmo shook his head. “There’s nothing you can say that will harm me so badly that I want you to refrain from saying it. I never wanted you to censor yourself before, and I want that even less now.”

Marty’s eyes strayed to the bed. “In that case… can we sit down?”

They took their time. Cosmo wandered to the side of the bed closest to the window, then sat and untied his shoes, his back to Marty. Marty brought the bottle of scotch with him as he sat on the other edge.

“It’s funny,” said Marty. He moved toward the center of the bed, tentatively placing both hands on Cosmo’s back, and felt him flinch. “Janek’s black box. It gives the bearer access to essentially unlimited money, and control over its distribution. A month ago I could have thought of a hundred ways I could use it to benefit millions of people. And yet, having it makes me a lot less willing to use it at all.”

“That—sounds about right.” Cosmo’s voice came out strained. When Marty dug in his thumbs, he let out a long sigh and leaned back into the pressure of his hands. “That’s heavenly.”

“Mmm.” Marty had to wait a moment before he would trust his own voice, then went on. “Something about greater power resulting in greater responsibility. So it occurred to me… that’s how _this_ feels right now.”

Cosmo eyed him over his shoulder. “This?”

“Us.” Marty rubbed harder, hoping to hear Cosmo make that sigh again, but Cos remained silent. “Anything we choose to do carries so much more weight than anything I could have imagined us doing.”

“That’s the nature of actual friendships. Relationships of all kinds, I suppose.”

“It took me years before I was willing to consider looking for _any_ kind of relationship. I wasted more time trying to convince myself I could find the right woman—and, when I found her, she still wasn’t what I wanted.”

Marty shifted Cosmo’s ponytail off to the side and focused on the patch of bare skin above the collar of Cosmo’s shirt. He leaned in and placed his lips there. Cosmo inhaled sharply, holding very still.

“I didn’t date anybody else until long after I heard about your, um. Your death.” Marty breathed in Cosmo’s faint cologne, underlaid with the scent of him. When he breathed out, he left goosebumps onto his neck.

Cosmo leaned back, and Marty automatically put his arms around him, as much to hold him up as to offer an embrace. “You mean you didn’t see other men.”

Marty nodded against his skin. “Although I did, eventually. There were several. The last one. Ben. He decided it wasn’t going to work after he noticed I was already in love with... a memory of someone else.”

“That’s an unrealistic ideal, don’t you think?” Cosmo’s voice was calm again. “You can’t really judge everyone you meet against a memory of someone else.”

“Yeah, well. That’s what I told myself, too, for the first decade or so? After that I stopped trying to be realistic, and just started accepting that’s what I was doing.”

Cosmo turned his head again. His rough cheek brushed against Marty’s lips. “I think, for this to be any kind of sustainable arrangement, you’ll need to assume _I’m_ not the same as that person in your memory, either.”

“That sounds… sensible.” Marty moved back, resting his hands on Cosmo’s shoulders for a long moment. Then he sighed and let them drop. “Yeah. Of course. You’re right.”

“I make a habit of being right as often as possible.” Cosmo smiled wryly at Marty. “Which, I imagine, is _precisely_ the kind of delightful character trait one wants in a friend.”

“It's not a problem if you don’t mind a little competition.” He leaned back on his arms and waited for Cosmo to turn around to face him before grinning smugly. Cosmo raised an eyebrow, and Marty raised one in return. “What it does make you is a pain in the ass. Especially if you're attempting to be part of a team.”

“Ah, well. As it happens, I’m motivated to put some work into that.”

“Being part of _my_ team?” Cosmo put up the other eyebrow, nodding, and Marty nodded back. “All right, go ahead. Give me your pitch.”

“Hand me that scotch first.”

Marty poured a little more into his own glass before passing the bottle to Cosmo. He swirled it, considering the liquid in the tumbler.

“Since before I left prison, I’ve been reorganizing other people’s businesses, restructuring their financials and the ways in which they handle their money. I think I should not do that for your team.”

“No?”

“No. I would not build any goodwill with your team by telling them what to do. There are, however, other legal ways by which I can exert influence on your team’s behalf, if you plan to use that black box.”

Marty cradled his scotch in his hands, watching Cosmo’s eyes resting on his fingers as they stroked the rim of the glass. “You mean like the way the NSA funded Janek’s research? Three hundred and eighty thousand goes a long way toward supporting brilliant and underfunded projects.”

“That was needlessly reckless of them,” said Cosmo, shaking his head in obvious disapproval. “Funding for research should not come from your team. Not directly.”

Marty propped up the pillow against the headboard, scooting back to lean back against it. “So, what, then?”

“You want control over the people who already make change. Strategically donate money to PACs in politically volatile regions. Provide lobbying groups with advisors who represent your interests by speeding up the revolving door between politics and lobbying firms. Hire bundlers to manage campaign fundraising for candidates who will further your goals.” Cosmo made a waving motion with his free hand as he gulped his scotch. “It’s not rocket science. The difference here is, you would have access and funds to exert influence at whatever rate you need.”

Marty leaned over him to grab the bottle, keeping his eyes on Cosmo. “So you’re saying we should go slowly, but we could... uh, increase the pace at any time?”

Cosmo’s intent expression broadened into a smile. He chuckled. “Something like that. I would imagine a series of long term goals, fed by systematic influence and occasional flurries of action."

“That.” Marty let out a breathy laugh that didn’t sound anything like him. “Um. Good plan. Effective.”

“Yes. The thing I won’t be able to help with is determining the long term goals. That will be up to your team. It might be as simple as reading from the Communist playbook, but I suspect your team’s politics might be somewhat more... well, _nuanced_ than that, now that you’re older and wiser.”

Marty coughed. “How about we say _better informed by historical events._ ”

Cosmo inclined his head. “As you like. There are also think tanks that have determined what policies and broad-scale actions will help reduce economic inequality among marginalized groups. You can draw on their research as well. From your goals, you can determine your strategy, but I think you’ve already chosen that.”

“You mean... steal from the rich to give to the poor.”

Cos rested his hand briefly on Marty’s knee, leaving behind a pleasant tingle when he removed it again. “Well, if you’re going to play Robin Hood, you’ll need to identify your evil Prince Johns, and carefully select your Sherwood and Nottingham beneficiaries. Then it’s as simple as establishing a targeted schedule of withdrawals and deposits.”

“After which you’d become… what? Just one of the Merry Men?” Marty gave him a skeptical look. “No. I don’t buy it. You want to use that box, just like any of us.”

Cosmo shook his head. “No. I can’t. If absolute power corrupts absolutely, I can’t have control over any of it. Not because I wouldn’t enjoy the hell out of it, but because of _my_ long term goal.”

Marty paused. “And what’s that, exactly?”

“Let’s say my strategy is threefold. First, I’ll have to convince your team that I can be trusted. The only way I can do that is to prove it. That’ll take some time.” Cosmo gazed across the room, then sighed, finishing his scotch. “Maybe a long time.”

Marty nodded slowly. “You're not kidding about thinking long term.”

“Naturally. In addition, each person on the team will need a defined exit strategy”

“Sure. I figure, at some point, it would make sense to get out, for good. None of us are going to be young forever.”

“Marty, if you haven’t noticed, we’re not young _now.”_ Cosmo rested the empty glass on his fingertips, lightly raising it so that it filtered the light from the desk lamp. “Reminders of mortality are always just around the corner.”

Marty nodded. This time the pain that accompanied memories of his father was somewhat less acute, probably because of all the scotch he'd consumed. “My dad’s father passed away when he was a boy, and both his brothers died young.” He touched Cosmo’s arm. “I guess you probably knew that.”

“I did.” He moved in a little closer to Marty. “I learned more about your father after I got out of prison than I ever wanted to know.”

“Does… that include what really happened in the mainframe lab in 1969?”

Marty didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he saw Cosmo nod, after which he was able to resume respiring normally again. “I wasn’t happy when I discovered you knew the NSA had set us up. Set _me_ up. I spent a lot of time being angry after that—angry at you, at your father, at the FBI, at at the prison system, at the people inside who made my life a living hell for months—but only until I figured out how to game it to my satisfaction.” Cos shrugged. “Eventually I had to concede that the only person making me unhappy was me.”

“I’m guessing you don’t mean that in a new age _we-control-our-own-destiny_ sort of way.”

Cosmo smiled. “No, I mean that in a _intelligence-trumps-thuggery_ sort of way. I had to outthink them, instead of being a punching bag for their dimwitted insolence.”

“And… so you did; the end?”

“It’s not an inaccurate summary.” He held out the scotch, but Marty shook his head. Cosmo set the bottle on the table beside the bed. “Yes, well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t fill in all the details of being a success in prison. Most of them are boring, messy, or illegal.”

“You can let me continue thinking of you as courageous and resourceful. And maybe a little underhanded.” At Cosmo’s snort, Marty grinned. “Okay, significantly underhanded. But I admire that, too.”

“Lucky for me.”

Cosmo’s smile had turned a little shy. Marty had to wonder if he’d ever seen Cosmo blush before. _Another long term goal,_ he thought, grinning bigger. _Maybe a daily one._

The longer Marty watched him, the more flustered Cosmo became, until at last he said, “I can think of better things you could do with your time than staring at me all morning.”

“I can’t,” Marty said. “But I’ll get out of your way, if you have other plans.”

Cosmo’s eyes flickered down to his lap as his smile deepened. “Let me check my schedule. Mmm, no, looks like I might be completely free for the rest of the weekend.”

Hesitantly, Marty sat up, leaning towards Cosmo, and Cosmo mirrored him, until they met in the middle of the bed. Their progress was slow but steady, until Marty was near enough to feel Cosmo’s breath on his cheek. Even then, it felt like it took an eternity to close the remaining centimeters between them.

 _Almost like college all over again,_ he thought, with the part of his brain that was still engaged in conscious observation. He knew his body was twenty-three years older now, but to his memory, none of the men with whom he’d done this had provoked anything close to this kind of enthusiastic response. _Not rational, no. But true._

“Marty,” murmured Cosmo.

That was a hell of an inspiration, hearing Cosmo say his name like that. He’d imagined him doing it so many times, replaying over and over in his head, it was practically a Pavlovian response by now. But when he seized Cosmo’s hand and pressed it to the inside of his thigh, Cosmo said it again: _“Marty,”_ and it was a little more desperate this time.

He sat back and gave Cosmo his attention. “What is it?”

Cosmo was staring fixedly, not at Marty, but across him at a point on the bedspread. “You asked… how many there had been. How many men in my bed. And I said none that my employees would have been aware of. The truth is, there have been none at all.”

“You’ve never… what? Had a relationship with another man?”

“No.”

Marty sat back further. “You’ve… never had sex with any other men.”

“No. In prison it would have been… an unfortunate circumstance to admit I wanted that, so I did not. I was lucky enough no one took away my choice not to.” He looked up and returned Marty’s gaze. “Work provided a convenient distraction.”

Marty attempted to consider the ramifications of this statement. “And, yet, you still think you want… this? With me?”

“I do.” Cosmo cautiously, deliberately, licked his lips, but when Marty reached for him, he resisted. “I’ve been thinking about it for many years. I haven’t been willing to seek it out with others, but rest assured, it’s not because I don’t want it.”

“All right. God.” Marty ran a hand over his face, trying to focus on anything other than Cosmo’s tongue. “Thank you for clarifying that. All of that. I’m not going to push you.”

“Marty,” Cosmo whispered. His eyes were desperate. “There’s a reason we just drank a half a bottle of scotch. I want you to _push me.”_

Marty sighed reproachfully. “Yeah? Well… tough. No, I’m serious,” he added, when Cosmo groaned, leaning his head in his hand. “I haven’t waited this long to blow things with you on a—a flurry of action. Isn’t access to forethought one of the only advantages of being over forty? So… sorry. I’m telling you, you’re setting the pace. Preferably when you're not drunk.”

He felt Cosmo take a long breath in and let it out. Marty let him do this a couple times, then he moved in closer, not to kiss or stroke, but to hold him. That felt easy, even while they were both so obviously turned on. He pulled Cosmo down to lie beside him, Cosmo’s head on his chest, as he attempted to gather his thoughts.

“Time for my own disclosure.” He squeezed Cosmo’s shoulder. “I mentioned earlier I imagined you saying something to me, about being at my father’s funeral. I’ve imagined you saying a lot of things. For years.”

Cosmo’s question was hesitant. “The… the way we used to do? In our room at college?”

“In our—uh.” Marty’s scotch-fueled memories of those brief weeks of sexual verbosity were sudden, vivid, and inspirational. He let out a laugh as hot lust pulsed through him. “No, not like that. Well, all right, sometimes it was like that. But usually it was just regular commentary, about little things. About everything. You were my constant acerbic companion.”

“Really.” Cosmo sounded intrigued. “You did this for years?”

“I didn’t let myself talk back until recently. Sometimes I had a hard time deciding if you were real or not. Of course, I knew you weren't. I just…” He sighed, brushing his fingers over Cosmo’s hair. “I _wanted_ you to be. And talking to you in my head was easier than talking to someone who was real and who didn't measure up to my memory of you.”

“I didn’t talk to anybody.”

Marty considered Cosmo’s solemn tone. “Nobody?”

Cosmo shook his head.

“Nobody at all?”

Cos shook his head again. This time it was Marty who took a long, slow breath in and out.

“Whistler told me... he thinks I was lonely. But it sounds like _you_ were the lonely one.”

“It’s not a unique state,” said Cosmo. “We were both lonely.”

“Well… you can talk to me now, if you want to.”

There was a long silence after that, but it didn’t feel bad. Marty appreciated the opportunity to focus on the sensation of Cosmo in his arms. Eventually, when Cosmo did speak, his voice sounded pensive.

“When you’re managing high-stakes operations, you don’t get a lot of chances to be… treated like a human being. You can’t be soft; you can’t be scared. You certainly can’t ever be out of control.” He moved in a little closer, one knee over Marty’s, and Marty pulled him in against his hip. “I think about that week, when I was sick. When you came back to school to take care of me.”

“Yeah.” Marty placed his hand over Cosmo’s. “That was… you were really sick. I mean, I really thought you might die, right there in that room, in my bed.”

“Well, as we have seen, young men are resilient.” Cosmo interlaced his fingers with Marty’s. “My point is, I’ve had a lot of experience dismissing others’ attempts to make me weak. But you…” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “I don’t seem to have any trouble _letting you in.”_

“I guess that could feel a little unnerving.”

“Terrifying,” Cosmo agreed.

“Learning to depend on others was one of the first things I had to do after I reestablished myself in the States. I assembled the team with the understanding that we wouldn’t pry into each other’s secrets.” Marty smiled to himself. “But every time I revealed something about my past, I would find myself feeling a little closer to them. It made us a better team.”

Cosmo propped himself up on one elbow, gazing down at Marty’s face. “It sounds like you’re not so alone after all.”

“No,” whispered Marty. “Especially not now.”

His gaze flickered down Marty’s body. “Close your eyes.”

Without hesitation, Marty obliged. He listened to Cosmo’s breathing. It would have been the appropriate time for a response to Cosmo’s handcuff joke, but he managed to—well, to restrain himself.

Marty did let himself respond, quietly and wordlessly, to Cosmo’s touch. It started at his face, then moved to his neck. He let out a quiet moan at the touch of Cosmo’s fingers unbuttoning his shirt, then sliding down his chest to his stomach before returning to cup his cheek.

“This face,” said Cosmo, with quiet reverence. “Every morning, Marty. I would wake up, thinking of this face. Your face, your body. The way you trusted me enough to tell me who you were in college, what you wanted. It made all the things _I_ wanted feel okay. All the things I thought about, you invited me to do them. You said things aloud that I never thought could possibly happen to me, but they did. You did things to me. And you made it… so good.”

His fingers brushed Marty’s navel, then lower, gripping him through the fabric of his jeans. Marty’s head was spinning, whirling with images of everything they’d ever done, everything they’d talked about doing, everything he’d done with others while dreaming of Cosmo.

“Telling you this feels like the end of two decades of fantasies,” Cosmo went on. “I don’t need anything more than this to be satisfied.”

“Really?” Marty gasped as Cosmo unzipped him, tucking one warm hand into his boxers. “Because I can think… of several things… I might need.”

“In time.” Cosmo sounded completely calm and confident. “Everything we’re doing now, this is… new. It’s not what it was in my fantasies, weeks and months and years ago. It’s what it is now.” Marty felt him tug on his jeans, and he lifted his hips up as Cosmo helped him wriggle out of them and discard them over the side of the bed. “It’s what I want with you, right now.”

It was easy to give in to Cosmo’s touch, to nod and murmur encouragement and let him do everything he wanted, to give him permission to explore, and to let himself bliss out on Cosmo, touching him in any way at all.

And then he heard Cosmo ask, “What do you want, Marty?” And suddenly, it stopped being easy. Marty opened his eyes, and there was Cosmo, less than a foot away, still completely dressed, and Marty was—

He scooted backward against the pillows along the headboard, avoiding Cosmo’s eyes.

“What’s the matter?”

“No.” Marty expelled his breath, shaking his head. “No. You don’t get to ask me that. You—you spent the last twenty-three years celibate and I get to be—what? The experiment? The disappointment? A plaything to be discarded?”

Cosmo didn’t even look upset at his outburst. He was maybe a little flushed, but given his actions, Marty figured that was understandable. “I didn’t say this was about any of those things, Marty.”

“Well, how can I feel okay asking you to do anything at all if I don’t know you already want to do it? Maybe you _won’t_ know. If you’ve never— _anythinged—_ then every little thing we do is going to be a test run.”

Cosmo smiled hesitantly. “That also implies that you’ll be the best I’ve ever had at everything. Perhaps that makes up for it?”

“Except there’s an awful lot of _everything_ out there.” Marty gestured angrily at the ephemeral _everything,_ as though it could be encapsulated within his clutched hand.

“Marty.” Cosmo reached out and took his hand, and waited until it stopped shaking.

“I’m—I’m sorry.” Marty thought about pulling away, then decided that was especially stupid and moved in close instead. Cosmo looked somewhat startled to see him suddenly so close, but he was willing to be kissed until Marty felt calm enough to explain. “I think I can tell you what I want. I just need a second.”

“Do you see me being in any kind of a hurry?”

Marty laughed despite himself. “I’d say twenty-three years is _definitely_ not a hurry.”

Cosmo slid a hand along Marty’s bare chest. Marty’s intense awareness of everything Cos was doing, coupled with his state of arousal, were inspiring a whole array of sensations, but not helping him focus. _What do I want?_ Marty sighed.

“I want—time. Time to find out who you are, instead of what my mind remembers you to be. I want to know you’re not going to vanish into the ether.”

“You’ve got it.” Cosmo leaned in and placed his lips on Marty’s collarbone. Marty felt his breath hitch.

“Even if… my team decides they can’t accept you?”

“It’s not conditional, Marty.” His lips moved to Marty’s neck. “I’m not asking you to promise things you can’t deliver.”

“I want to—to spend time with you.” Marty tipped his head to the side to give Cosmo better access, and groaned as Cosmo’s hand moved up his thigh. “As much as we can tolerate. Until I stop wondering if I’m going to wake up to discover it’s all a lie.”

Cosmo chuckled. “On the contrary, I think you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me.”

“I want…” Marty’s capacity for rational thought was nearly gone. He shifted his hips, his breathing ragged. “I want you to suck me.”

Cosmo's response wasn't verbal, but it was swift and affirmative. Marty’s mind couldn’t encompass a span of twenty-three years since Cos had last done this—that couldn’t _really_ be true, could it?—but he didn’t seem to be reticent, or even all that hesitant. Marty expelled a shaky curse as Cosmo’s tongue preceded his lips.

“Keep your eyes open, Marty,” Cosmo said, without looking up at him. “I want you to know this is real.”

“This is real,” Marty echoed.

He didn’t let himself cry until Cosmo placed his hands on the sensitive skin of Marty’s inner thighs, spreading him open with exquisite care. It wasn’t quite the same rhythm he’d wanted in college, the pacing Cosmo had learned by listening to him get off in the bunk below him. This was more deliberate, more decadent than that. It was, Marty realized, what _Cosmo_ wanted. Marty want to beg him, _more,_ but he bit his lip and remained silent. He wouldn’t interfere with Cosmo’s first time doing this in two decades.

Even so, it took a shorter time than Marty could have believed was possible. Obediently, he kept his eyes open almost the entire time, until the very end. Cosmo didn’t slow down, but he did shift his hips to rest against the edge of the bed, providing himself with a conveniently firm surface against which to grind. When Marty gripped the bedspread, twisting it in his fist, Cosmo let out a low moan.

“Fuck,” Marty whispered, feeling the clench of his stomach. The tears had trickled down his cheek and pooled in his ear. “Don’t, not yet, I’m almost there, I want—I want to taste you, please—”

“You've got it, you've got it,” Cosmo promised, his voice taut as wire. “I'm not going anywhere.”

Marty fumbled to rest his hand on Cosmo’s head, not to control him, but to feel his motion, to be as present as he possibly could be as they reached what felt to be an inevitable conclusion. He heard himself let out a little sob, and, mortified, let Cosmo interlock their fingers as he came.

He’d barely relaxed his grip before Cosmo was climbing up to lie beside him, their bodies touching only peripherally, laterally, hips and feet and a jumble of arms.

“I have very little experience with this,” murmured Cos, “but a hell of a rich fantasy life. Would you give me a moment to calm down? Otherwise I fear this will be over very, very quickly.”

With as much care as he could muster, Marty lifted himself up onto his hands and knees over Cosmo, loosening the buckle on his belt and tugging his slacks down over his hips in one motion. Cos’ noise of disbelief was far more satisfying than it should have been. Marty smiled into his shocked face.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care how quickly this is over, and I sure as hell don’t want you to calm down.”

Cosmo didn’t feel familiar to him, but the sounds he was making had reverberated in Marty’s memory for the past twenty-three years. He reveled in them now, as Cosmo jerked and shuddered beneath his touch. The moment he bent to take him in his mouth, Cosmo bucked up to meet him, still quiet, still controlled, but now Marty’s ears were flooded with whispered words of wanting.

“—inside me, your fingers, please, right now—”

It was a judgment call, but Marty decided after all this time hiding his actions from his henchmen, Cosmo probably did know what he wanted. With a decisive thrust, Marty managed to get two dry fingers into him before he came, in near-silence.

Cosmo did not stop shaking for a long time. Marty stayed where he was, resting his head on Cosmo’s thigh, stroking the hair of his well-muscled leg and letting the moment extend as long as both of them would let it.

“Tell me,” Cosmo said at last, his voice composed, “you’re going to stay in this bed with me, here, for at least the next few hours?”

“I thought I would, yes.”

“Do you suppose you might be able to relax here, beside me?”

“I’m not sure,” Marty admitted, but he crawled up to occupy the space on the bed next to Cosmo. “I don’t often sleep well with others.”

“I don’t expect you to sleep.” Cosmo’s face was clear, his eyes locked on Marty’s. “But I admit I might not ever want to stop touching your skin. If you would permit me…”

Marty breathed in as Cosmo gathered him into his arms, and let out a shaky whimper that sounded like _ohh._ He nodded rather than trust his voice. Cosmo kissed his ear.

“I’m here,” he said. He said it like he still wasn’t sure it was the truth.

“We’re here,” Marty agreed. He clutched Cosmo’s arms around him like a cloak, and let himself pretend, just for a moment, that everything was going to be okay.


End file.
